Canberra-based website RoomRates.com.au is gaining on its competitors in the cyber world by providing extra incentives to its customers when they book their accommodation online. 

RoomRates.com.au is the latest brainchild of successful Canberra entrepreneur Robert Leticq, whose ACT Tourism Award-winning Privileges Card launched in 1991 is used by tens of thousands of Australians to access fantastic deals at leading leisure and entertainment venues.

“RoomRates.com.au is the only known web site to provide a dining incentive with every booking (hotel deal with a free meal) and it is the only known web site that donates part of its profits to leading charities that find shelter for people in need (donate a bed when you book ahead)”, says Leticq.

Users say the site is clean and clutter free, simple to use and easy to navigate.

With a range of 45,000 hotels in 120 countries to choose from, and the ability to take advantage of a ‘lowest rate guarantee’ for last minute bookings, plus the free main meal deal at quality restaurants in a growing number of cities, RoomRates.com.au is fast becoming the popular online booking site.

Access the site via www.RoomRates.com.au

The Australian War Memorial offers the opportunity for all Australians to experience a significant part of history and nationhood.

It is open daily. Entry is free, although donations are encouraged to assist in maintaining the collection.

Must sees:

Colonial Conflicts
First World War 1914-1918
Second World War 1939-1945
Conflicts 1945 to today
The dioramas
The Hall of Valour
Aircraft Hall
ANZAC Hall
The Discovery Zone
 

Special places:

The entrance and commemorative courtyard
The Hall of Memory
The Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier
The Sculpture Garden
 

Four millennia before the Californian Supreme Court overturned its ban on same-sex marriage and Ellen DeGeneres wed her girlfriend Portia de Rossi, two manicurists of Ancient Egypt won social acceptance for their homosexual relationship.

Since the Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep was discovered in 1964 in the Necropolis of Saqqara at Memphis on the West bank of the Nile, debate has raged as to what relationship they shared as it is extremely rare to find two men of equal status buried together.

The key to this mystery lies in the Wall paintings covering the inside of the tomb,
which show the two men repeatedly pictured together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes with their arms around each other. In two of these murals they are shown with noses touching, the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art at the time.

Although the tomb has been studied, very little has been written about it. A fact Egyptologist Greg Reeder, a contributing editor to the Egyptology Journal KMT, is planning on changing.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Reeder said Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep adopt poses which are strikingly similar to male-female married couples on other tombs of that era. “Same-sex desire must be considered as a probable explanation,” he said, though he admits it is impossible to be sure. “We can only say for certain that the carvings show a profound intimacy between the two men, and the people who built the tomb were possibly unsure how to portray this.”
Opponents say that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep could have been twins, conjoined twins or blood relatives, such as brothers, because of the similarities between the two names.

“The danger is that people want to find positive (homosexual) images in the past and it is very hard for modern European eyes to resist seeing the images as homoerotic,” Richard Parkinson, assistant keeper in the department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, said to The Sunday Times. “I doubt myself that this is one of them, simply because we have no other evidence of male-male relationships being commemorated.”

Niankhkhnum means “joined in life” and Khnumhotep means “joined to the blessed state of the dead”. Together the names can be translated as “joined in life and joined in death” and although it was not unheard of for Egyptians to change their names later in life, the two men also share the same title, “Overseer of Manuscripts to the Pharaoh”. As such they were responsible for the Pharaoh’s hands and among the privileged few allowed to touch the ruler.

Even though Niankhkhnum was known to be married, the hieroglyphs that tell their stories still fail to mention their relationship. In a scene where the two men share a final banquet before their journey into the afterlife, Niankhkhnum’s wife has been plastered over and Khnumhotep’s spouse fails to make an appearance at all.

Mr Reeder said that in this banquet scene, Khnumhotep occupies the place normally associated with wives and that hints of homosexual relationships, commonplace in ancient Greece and Rome, have been found in Egyptian Papyruses.

“Same-sex desire existed just behind the ideal façade constructed by the ancients” he stated at a speech in Dallas in 1998, noting that it is often difficult to find the right words to talk about sexuality in ancient times “…Gay’ is too loaded. ‘Homosexual is too modern, so you have to speak in terms of their relationship to one another” He said.

Although their ancient ancestors were known for their sexual customs, which included incest to keep the royal blood pure, current Egyptian laws that ban any homosexual activity, have made it impossible for gay tourist operators to target the site.

Thomas Dowson, an independent scholar formerly at Manchester University, told The Sunday Times: “I have absolutely no problem if we have evidence of same-sex unions in the past that is used to challenge the homophobia of our society today, though that doesn’t mean we play fast and loose with the data.”

The tomb was restored by German Archeologists in the late 1970’s, opened to the public in 1990 and ever since has attracted a lot of gay tourists.

“I think it is beautiful, but if it became too big, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Egyptian authorities closed it down,” Dowson said.
 

The Starchild Skull
Genetic enigma or Human-Alien Hybrid?

Distinguished international lecturer Lloyd Pye will tour Australia for a series of paradigm altering public lectures. His first Canberra seminar, The Starchild Skull, will be held on Friday evening 26th September between 6:30 to 9:00pm. His second lecture, Human Origins: from Bigfoot to Sitchin, covering the fourth model of human origins will be on the following evening at the same venue. See The Word article for more information.
 

Background

In 1930 a Mexican girl finds two skeletons in a mine tunnel and brings the skulls to the U.S.A.

In February 1999, researcher and author Lloyd Pye was shown the two relics for his opinion. One was clearly human, the other, human-like, definitely, but bizarre (see image).

This bizzare relic differed from normal human skulls in several ways:

• The eye sockets are extremely shallow and completely different in shape and location;
• It had no inion, the bump at the lower rear part of the head that all primates have, not just humans;
• It had no trace of frontal sinuses;
• Its bone was half as thick as normal human bone and weighed half as much, yet was twice as strong, with tensile strength more like tooth enamel . . . and much more.
• These oddities were discovered during a nine-year-long battle of wits & wills as this one researcher took on the monolithic weight of scientific orthodoxy.

Lloyd oversaw a range of exacting scientific tests. Some ‘experts’ gave the standard (safe?) textbook answer, a “cradle-boarded hydrocephalic”. Others put their scientific and professional reputations on the line. The results were interesting to say the least:

• The Starchild skull’s external size indicates it should have an internal brain volume of 1200 cubic centimetres (cc). It measured as 1600 cc, fully one-third larger than normal!
• The skull’s symmetry is nearly perfect, more than most ‘normal’ human skulls.
• Carbon dating confirms that both of the skulls died at 900 years ago.
• Embedded inside the actual bone are some unusual durable fibers and a strange red residue that has no prior record in science.
• They seem impossible but are real.

As scientific facts stacked up, the “cradle-boarded hydrocephalic” explanation wore thin. In fact, the latest DNA tests done by Trace Genetics in the USA strongly indicate it may not be entirely human. The mother is definitely a human from haplogroup C, but in six full attempts the father’s DNA could not be recovered. His DNA did not respond to human primers and is therefore something other than entirely human.

Lloyd Pye’s next task is to recover the Starchild’s entire genome, which can be done now through a new testing procedure by a company called 454 Life Sciences in the USA. This company is currently sequencing the Neanderthal’s genome.

While SETI seeks proof of alien life beyond Earth, Lloyd Pye believes that for the past nine years he has been showing the world’s scientists what they claim to be seeking: absolute ironclad proof that at least one alien-human hybrid was possibly alive (and died) on Earth 900 years ago.

So is this simply a bizarre rare freak of nature, a genuine 900 year old alien skull . . . or possibly even a hybrid? The evidence is compelling and the science doesn’t lie. See the proof at this fascinating lecture, then make up your own mind.

Lloyd will have his engaging book covering his 8 years research plus a professionaly made lithographic reproduction of this unusual relic for people to see and even hold.

About the presenter.

Lloyd Pye published his first novel in 1977. For the next decade he worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, after which his second novel was published in 1987. In the early 1990s, he switched his focus from fiction to nonfiction, moving into alternative knowledge in 1997 with publication of his book Everything You Know is Wrong. It became a best seller and launched him into his decade-long career as a lecturer in several areas of alternative research, especially those that deal with hominoids (bigfoot, yeti, sasquatch, etc.), and the Intervention Theory of human origins. This fact-based alternative to Evolution, Creation and Intelligent Design, has more solid scientific evidence to support it than the other three combined.

This event is open to all and is not backed by any particular groups, clubs or societies.

Venue: Haydon-Allen Lecture Theatre, Australian National University (not ANU sponsored, but they do have great lecture theatres though)

The marriage of Ellen DeGeneres to her Australian girlfriend Portia de Rossi has renewed criticism of our same-sex marriage laws.

Since same-sex marriages are not recognised by the federal government, the couple’s legal status will cease to exist when they visit de Rossi’s family here in Australia.

A Galaxy poll shows that 71% of Australians agree that same-sex partners should have the same legal rights as de facto heterosexual couples, while only 23% disagreed. The same poll showed that 57% agree that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

Australian Marriage Equality (AME) welcomes the decision made by the Californian Supreme Court last Thursday to overturn their ban on same-sex marriage, believing it places
greater pressure on the Rudd government to end discrimination here.

“It’s time the Australian government pulled it’s head out of the sand. This issue is not going away; they cannot just avoid it any longer. As the number of foreign jurisdictions which deliver full equality grows, Australia bigotry only becomes even more excruciatingly obvious,” said AME National Converter, Peter Furness.

California now joins Massachusetts as the only two US states that recognise same – sex marriage. Equal marriage rights already exist in Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, South Africa and Spain with Norway and Sweden expected to join the group within the next few months.

The Marriage Act was amended in 2004 to explicitly state that marriage in Australia can only be between a man and a woman, and that marriages held in other countries won’t be recognised here.

Currently, Same-Sex relationships can be registered in the ACT and Tasmania but the government is opposed to them having marriage status.

Marriage is defined not only has a cultural practice but also as a binding contract in the eyes of the law, establishing the spouse as the next-of-kin, or a blood relative. In almost every important situation, such as making medical decisions or deciding property rights, the next-of-kin play a very important role.

At the centre of the argument against same-sex marriage is tradition. Those opposed argue that legalising same-sex marriage will destroy the concept of the traditional family, lead to increased sexual promiscuity and confusion over sexual identity in young people. However the biggest argument used by opponents is that marriage was originally designed as a means for having children, and since same-sex couples cannot procreate, they should not be allowed to marry.

Counsellor Erica Straun*, who’s mother has been in a same – sex relationship for over ten years, said “The main thing I hear from people who are against same-sex marriage is the ‘tradition’ argument. People say that the nature of marriage is that it be between a man and a woman. This is where I like to say ‘so if one of them has had a sex change it’s ok?’ I recall getting the answer ‘as long as the sex change is so good that you can’t tell.’”

The opinion of those that are at the heart of this debate is that allowing same-sex couples to perform Civil Unions would be a good start.

“Yes, I want to have my relationship recognised in the eyes of the law but I sometimes wonder if I actually want it to be ‘marriage’ in the traditional sense. In fact as a gay man I would be more than happy just for civil partnerships to be allowed in the ACT so that I can have a commitment ceremony to my man if I choose to, but also have the government recognise that my relationship is valid.” said David Willett.

Andrew Cox, who has been in a serious long-term relationship for some years now, agrees “I think the gays should have something that’s their own; different to a wedding/marriage that has similar legal rights…”

Another argument that has been retracted in the last few years is religion. As a large amount of marriages that occur in Australia are performed as Civil Unions, senator Joe Ludwig was hesitant to cite religion as a reason for Labour’s opposition at a meeting with AME in Brisbane in 2007.

Heterosexual Jill Dixon sums up popular opinion perfectly: “I support same-sex marriage and wish it was legalised in Australia. And I wish they’d take religion out of it. If the church doesn’t want to perform the ceremony in Church then at least let a civil union be recognised. These couples will spend the rest of their lives together so I don’t see why they don’t want it to be recognised by law. I don’t see how it’s different from any other couple.”

By Ilana Pender-Rose
*Name has been changed
 

Taking Action for Migrants: AMUMRA revives global calls against the EU Directive to expel undocumented migrants

On August 28, AMUMRA, an organisation of migrants and refugees in Argentina, held a demonstration in Buenos Aires against the European Union’s Returns Directive, showing continued global anger at the Directive, which seeks to ban migrants found in Europe without documents from returning to the continent for five years.

“This protest is our obligation, because to accept the EU Returns Directive, or the absence of an action to oppose it, would imply our assent,” says Natividad Obeso, president of AMUMRA.

“This Directive leaves it open to Governments to severely violate the rights of migrants in Europe, while superficially seeking to make the system better,” said Zoe Bake-Paterson of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, an international umbrella body of migrant and anti-trafficking groups.

“We support communities in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania who are rightfully outraged by this legislation that does nothing to address the root causes of migration without documents,” she added.

AMUMRA is lobbying the President of Argentina, Dr. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, to call on European ambassadors and consulates to assist and protect migrants; to inform the population about the EU Directive; and to declare that AMUMRA’s mobilisation against the EU Directive is an act taken in the public interest.

The EU Returns Directive, approved by the European Parliament on 18 June 2008, purports to regulate and legalize the return (or expulsion) of irregular and undocumented migrants from the 27 countries of the European Union. Countries in the EU have two years to implement the Directive through national laws and policy.

The Directive is said to be created in accordance with international law, including human rights protections, but has been criticised globally for violating human rights.

By allowing the detention of unaccompanied minors, the Directive violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In setting a common standard for the detention of undocumented migrants for up to 18 months, the Directive contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that the detention of undocumented migrants is only permitted where action is being taken towards removal or deportation. The act of migration is not a crime, and to detain undocumented migrants for a lengthy period of 18 months is unlawful.

Additional concerns include the re-entry ban, barring migrants who have been deported from one European Union country from entering any of the 27 countries for a period of five years, and the lack of procedural safe guards in the Directive.

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GAATW is a network spanning five continents of more than 90 organizations committed to ending trafficking and to the protection of the human rights of trafficked persons and women migrant workers. It is a non-governmental organization in special consultative status with ECOSOC (the UN Economic and Social Council).